Substantially autonomous vehicles are anticipated to revolutionize all facets of transport. Substantially autonomous vehicles will be built and designed to substantially lessen, or even remove, the reliance on a human driver to safely navigate to a particular destination, and will lower capital costs for consumers by reducing car-ownership as a new model of “ride-sharing” and “transport on demand” becomes more prominent. Substantially autonomous vehicles are designed with sensors, artificial intelligence control modules, network functionality, and GPS functionality in a substantially interlinked manner in order to perform all the functions of safe driving that previously required a human operator. The key differences between a substantially autonomous vehicle and a human operator are: faster response times to expected or unexpected events occurring in transit, 100 percent, or substantially close to, 100 percent compliance with road rules and regulations, the ability to safely respond to changes in road conditions (e.g. wet roads), and other measures that decreases the chance for human and non-human occupants of a vehicle to be injured or fatally injured. One predicted use of autonomous vehicles is as a taxi service for persons, animals, or goods and services for commercial usage. The predicted benefits of autonomous vehicles as a taxi service is reduced response times upon a user request, more accurate routes taken to destination, and a safer taxi trip for human and non-human occupants, in that the taxi service patrons do not have to worry about factors such as driver fatigue, abuse of substances by driver, or other “human error” failings that may cause injury or fatal injury.
Attempts in the art to make workable infrastructure for autonomous vehicles as a taxi-service are, for example, embodied by US. Pat. Application 2013077590 by KATARA et al., which describes a novel system for ensuring authentication of users requesting the autonomous vehicle taxi services. The novel system focuses on an “in-vehicle passenger authorization system” and whilst it is comprehensive in the procedures and processes involved with authenticating a user before the user makes active use of the autonomous vehicle taxi service, it fails to consider other important elements and potential scenarios involved with requesting and utilizing an autonomous vehicle taxi service. Hence there is a need in the art to address such elements, in order to minimize capital costs for owners or operators of the autonomous vehicle taxi-service, maximise efficiencies and energy usage, maximise positive reputation for the owner or operator, and ensure maximum consumer satisfaction to ensure the long-term viability of an autonomous vehicle taxi-service.